’The genista, however, was especially delightful, covering, as it did with its flowers, the greater part of the plains.  Then, moreover, Rome presented itself fully to the eyes, together with Soracte and the Sabine Land, and the Apennine range white with snow, and Tibur and Praeneste.’

It is clear that it was a thoroughly modern enthusiasm which attracted AEneas Sylvius to the country and gave him this ready pen for everything in Nature—­everything, that is, except bare mountain summits.

It is difficult to attribute this faculty for enjoying and describing scenery to the influence of antiquity alone, for, save the younger Pliny, I know of no Roman under the Empire who possessed it, and, besides, we do not know how far Pius II. was acquainted with Roman literature.  We know that the re-awakening of classic literature exerted an influence upon the direction of the feeling for Nature in general, and, for the rest, very various elements coalesced.  Like times produce like streams of tendency, and Hellenism, the Roman Empire, and the Renaissance were alike to some extent in the conditions of their existence and the results that flowed from them; the causal nexus between them is undeniable, and makes them the chief stepping-stones on the way to the modern.

Theocritus, Meleager, Petrarch, and AEneas Sylvius may serve as representatives of the development of the feeling for Nature from classic to modern; they are the ancestors of our enthusiasm, the links in the chain which leads up to Rousseau, Goethe, Byron, and Shelley.

From the autobiography of AEneas Sylvius and the lyrics of Petrarch we gain a far truer picture of the feeling of the period up to the sixteenth century than from any poetry in other countries.  Even the epic had a more modern tone in Italy; Ariosto’s descriptions were far ahead of any German epic.

Humboldt pointed out very clearly the difference between the epic of the people and the epic of art—­between Homer and Ariosto.  Both, he said, are true painters of the world and Nature; but Ariosto pleases more by his brilliance and wealth of colour, Homer by purity of form and beauty of composition.  Ariosto achieves through general effect, Homer through perfection of form.  Nature is more naive in Homer, the subject is paramount, and the singer disappears; in Ariosto, Nature is sentimental, and the poet always remains in view upon the stage.  In Homer all is closely knit, while Ariosto’s threads are loosely spun, and he breaks them himself in play.  Homer almost never describes, Ariosto always does.

Ariosto’s scenes and comparisons from Nature, being calculated for effect, are more subjective, and far more highly-coloured than Homer’s.  But they shew a sympathetic grasp.

The modern bloom, so difficult to define, lies over them—­something at once sensuous, sentimental, and chivalrous.  He is given to describing lonely woodland scenery, fit places for trysts and lovers’ rendezvous.